LAYING AND HATCHING 67 



weeks old, it is taken out of the nest and killed and both the 

 mature birds are concerned then only with the new hatch. 

 This sequence of eggs and hatches goes on all the time. 



If there are not two nests, the two new eggs will be laid in 

 the nest where are the growing squabs. The parents in their 

 eagerness to sit on the new eggs will push the squabs out of 

 the nest and they will die for lack of sustenance. 



The hen lays the eggs about four o'clock in the afternoon. 

 The cock and hen take turns at covering the eggs, the hen 

 sitting during the night until about ten o'clock in the morning, 

 when the cock relieves her, remaining on until the latter part 

 of the afternoon. 



When the squabs are taken out for market at the end of four 

 weeks, the nest bowl and nest box should be cleaned. If 

 this cleaning is done once a week, no trouble from parasites 

 will result. In the summer it is well to add a little carbolic 

 acid to the whitewash as an extra precaution. Sprinkle 

 unslaked lime on the floor of the squab house and in the nest 

 boxes, and spiay squab-fe-nol freely. 



One way of mating or pairing pigeons is to turn males and 

 females in equal number into the same pen. They will seek 

 their own mates and settle down to steady reproduction. 

 Another method is to place the male and female which you 

 wish to pair in a mating coop or hutch. In the course of a few 

 days they will mate or pair and then you may turn them loose 

 in the big pen with the others. The latter method is necessary 

 when improving your flock by the addition of new blood, or 

 when keeping a positive record of the ancestry of each pair. 

 By studying your matings, you may improve the efficiency 

 of your flock. 



In the case of a , new flock of pigeons shipped to a new 

 home, all do not go to work at the same time. Those pairs 

 which get to work first are bothered by the slower pairs. To 

 judge from the advertisements of some breeders, anxious to 

 claim everything for their birds and their wonderful matings, 

 the beginner would think that all the birds he buys from them 

 will go to work immediately when released in their new home. 

 This is far from the truth. The pairs will go to work to suit 

 themselves as to time. Some will be quick, others slow. As 

 fast as each pair goes to work, it should be caught and placed 

 in the breeding pen. The first pen, into which the birds 



